Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Let me say to Senator Casey before he leaves the floor, the kind of speech he has made is the kind of speech none of us wants to make. It happens with each of us in each of our States. As the Senator from Pennsylvania was speaking, it caused me to reflect back that one of the more painful duties as an active-duty U.S. Army captain in the late 1960s was that of going and informing the family members, next of kin, about the loss of their loved one. That was during Vietnam. That was usually the occasion for the notification of next of kin. How difficult a task it is personally to do it because you realize how difficult it is for the family to receive that news. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his obviously heartfelt comments about the Pennsylvania citizens who have fallen in combat and for his words and expression of appreciation for the patriotism of these young men and women. Coral Reef Ecosystems I rise today to speak about another subject, the fact that two of the committees on which I sit have recently reported out important legislation to protect delicate coral reefs off the coast of our country. It is called the Coral Reef Conservation Amendments Act and the Tropical Forest Conservation Act. Mr. President, 84 percent of all of the coral reef ecosystems in the country happen to be off the coast of Florida. It is important that we protect them because--and a lot of people don't realize this--they protect us. Coral reefs are fragile, slow-going, slow-growing, and long-lived ecosystems. Corals themselves are easily damaged and they are vulnerable to severe weather, ship damage, pollution, nutrification, and changes in temperature. Even with all of those environmental and physical challenges, coral reef ecosystems provide invaluable services to us. They protect our shorelines. They enhance our economies because of all of the wonderful exploration in dive shops. They shelter fisheries, and they are a very valuable ecosystem for a variety of marine life. Beyond the current ecosystem services and known capacities, coral reefs also hold the promise for new discoveries, new and beneficial drugs coming from the coral reefs, improved understanding of disease and, even now, understanding of new species. As we reauthorize in this legislation the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, we are going to take an important and significant new step to preserving and restoring global natural resources and marine systems. This reauthorization will continue our efforts to preserve the world's forests, the coral reefs, and now the coastal marine ecosystems. This act will create an invaluable debt for nature exchange that benefits both the global economy and the global environment. We have an aquarium in Tampa, FL that is offering its expertise in coral conservation and coral health certification in these international efforts that are ongoing. Developing countries are now participating in this debt relief initiative, and it will greatly benefit from the research that is going on at the Florida aquarium. The legislation that is coming forth is a reauthorization that strengthens the authority of the Secretary of Commerce. It gives the Secretary the ability to address threats to coral reef ecosystems in U.S. waters. It expands NOAA's authority to respond to stranded and grounded vessels that threaten the coral reefs. The bill also allows for NOAA to negotiate agreements with coral reef research institutes such as the Institute at Nova Southeastern University in my State in the city of Fort Lauderdale. This bill also provides mechanisms for the Government to recoup costs and damages from the responsible parties and then apply those funds to coral restoration efforts in damaged areas. We have another potential devastation of coral reefs. Many of these reefs are right off the Florida Keys. It is an area of endangered, critical concern. There are these beautiful coral reefs that do all of these protections I talked about for the delicate keys: protection from storms, housing the fisheries, a place for research and development with regard to disease, and so forth. But let me tell you about a new destructive potential for the coral reefs. Remember, 84 percent of the Nation's coral reefs are in Florida. Since there is no treaty between Cuba and the United States with regard to the operation of the waters between the two, there have been exchanges between the Government of the United States and Cuba, through the facilities of the Swiss Embassy, an exchange of letters that has been going on for 20 years, designating a line halfway between Key West and Cuba, which is only 90 miles, or a line 45 miles off the coast of Cuba, which happens to be 45 miles off of Key West, as a line at which the jurisdiction of the waters in each respective part is the jurisdiction of that country. Here is the problem. Cuba, combined with foreign oil companies, now including PDVSA, the oil company of Venezuela, is starting to explore for oil out in the waters off of Cuba. There has been some exploration already near the shore. But unless that agreement is modified, the Venezuelan oil company could be drilling for oil 45 miles off of Key West. Right off of Key West is the gulf stream. The gulf stream comes up through the west side of Cuba and the Yucatan peninsula, goes into the Gulf of Mexico, turns eastward and southward and comes down below Key West, between Key West and Cuba, and then follows the keys northward, hugs the coast of Florida only a couple of miles off the coast, all the way up to the middle of Florida at Fort Pierce, and then turns and leaves the coast of Florida going across the Atlantic and goes all the way over to northern Europe. If we don't call back this letter that most recently the Bush White House has sent to Cuba to ratify the agreement, which is done every 2 years, it gives perfect license for the Castro government to go in and drill. If there is an oil spill that is caught up in that gulf stream, you can see the potential for destruction of the delicate coral reefs all lining the Florida Keys and then right up the east coast of the State of Florida. I have written to the President today asking him to recall the letter. The letter has been delivered by the State Department to the Swiss Embassy, but it has not been responded to by the Government of Cuba. It is not too late to withdraw that letter from the United States Government setting that boundary, and instead a new letter should be sent, perhaps with regard to what this initially started a couple of decades ago, on the fishing rights of each country, but one that would exempt out the rights of Cuba to drill in such a dangerous area. At least this ought to be an issue that is negotiated to keep the oil drilling away from the gulf stream which could damage these very coral reefs which I have been talking about in this act, this legislative act which has come out of the committee on which the Presiding Officer and I serve. It is not too late, if the Bush administration will do this. This happened 2 years ago and the Bush administration ignored the calls. But in the last 2 years, it has become much more apparent that oil companies sometimes that may not be safe in their drilling practices are in fact going to drill. The United States needs to have a say in those drilling operations not being out there close to the gulf stream which is only 30 or 40 miles off of the city of Key West which is at the lower end of the Florida Keys. I come here happily to embrace this legislation protecting coral reefs, but I come here with an urgent message asking the White House to protect our coral reefs by withdrawing this letter sent to the Castro government of Cuba. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I wish to say to the very distinguished Senator from North Dakota he has always been one of the foremost advocates for improving Indian health on the tribal lands, and I intend to support him. I thank him for his advocacy. In my State of Florida, we have a number of very prominent Indian tribes, the Seminoles, the Mikasukis, and others. The good fortune is they do not have the health problems other tribes have throughout other parts of the country. Yet there are some problems in Florida as well. This is a matter we cannot continue to close our eyes to. We need to help them. I intend to support the Senator from North Dakota on this bill. I look forward to its passage and, hopefully, working out the problems with the White House so they will not veto this legislation. Madam President, I wish to talk about this. We are now obviously in a recession: the gyration of the stock market, the weakness of the dollar, the roiling markets around the world, the emergency meeting of the Federal Reserve, the cutting of the rate three-quarters of a percent, from 4\1/4\ to 3\1/2\, the likelihood they will meet again next week and cut the interest rate further. We are in a full-scale recession. I have returned from my State of Florida and this recess having done town hall meetings all over the State, in which the town halls were packed, with standing room only. They were out into the hallways. They were hungry to be heard, and that is the way I conduct those town hall meetings. I go in and say: This is your meeting, and I want to hear what is on your mind, what your concerns are, and I want to know how you are hurting, so we can try to help you. We pick up huge numbers of cases for our caseworkers as a result of these outreach town hall meetings all over my State. Let me remind you my State is the fourth largest in the Union and by 2012 it will surpass New York and will be the third largest in the Union. In that midst of 18 million people who are as diverse as America, indeed becoming as diverse as the Western Hemisphere, people are hurting. In addition to the global and national economies, our people are triply hurting by getting the double whammy of increased real estate taxes, as well as huge increases in homeowners insurance. We talked about this crisis many times on the floor--about an appropriate Federal role to assist the States with regard to insurance markets that have gone out of control, jacking the rates to the Moon, in the anticipation of another catastrophe following Katrina in New Orleans and the previous year, 2004, four hurricanes that hit Florida within a 6-week period. All those things have come together, so that I can tell you in these 15 town hall meetings I did, from literally one end of Florida, Key West, to the other, Pensacola, people are hurting. You take a very upscale, increasingly hot economy, such as Fort Myers, Lee County, they are in the economic doldrums. They are hurting. Go to your rural areas. We always talk about rural health care. It is certainly true there. But the rural areas are depressed. The jobs have diminished. Unemployment has gone up. The people are concerned about their investments. The main investment the average Florida family has is their home. If they need cash and need to sell their home, now they cannot sell their home because there is a complete flat market; and if they need cash, trying to get an additional loan because of equity, the banks are not loaning. So you get the picture of what is happening in Florida. Indeed, Florida is the microcosm of America. This is happening all over America. Now, what we have already voted on in the Senate is a first step. But it is a small step. We have voted on, and I have supported, mortgage forgiveness debt relief so if a bank were to forgive part of the loan, we want to change the Tax Code so the homeowner doesn't have to pay income tax on that reduction in the amount of the loan the bank grants them, to try to keep them solvent so they can continue to pay off the loan. We are also supporting property tax relief, which is that 32 million homeowners, or 70 percent of taxpayers, do not itemize their real estate property taxes, and of that 70 percent, 32 million of those are homeowners. What we are suggesting is that we give them a standard deduction, so if you own real estate property and you don't itemize your deductions, there will be a standard deduction that will be available. And then in December the Senate passed, and this Senator voted for, the Federal Housing Administration Modernization Act. It was intended to help homeowners in the risky subprime mortgages to be able to refinance them through the FHA into more reliable mortgages. These are all attempts at getting at the problem. But that was December and this is now late January and the economy has slipped further and deeper into recession. So we need to come out in a bipartisan way with a fix that will help stimulate the economy and try to get us back on track: increasing unemployment compensation perhaps from the 26 weeks to as many as 46 weeks; the ability to go in and put money quickly in somebody's pocket, such as a reduction of the payroll taxes, that in those every 2-week paychecks, they will see an increase in that take- home pay; perhaps for those who are hurting the most at the lower end of the economic scale, additional food stamps; infrastructure support that would get money into the economy, stimulating and turning over those dollars into the economy if it is invested in items that can be spent immediately in the much needed repair of roads and bridges. Whatever the ideas are, there is going to be an ideological divide. Let's hope it does not come down to this question of taxing the poor and giving the tax breaks to the more well off. That is not going to give the economic stimulus this country needs. And then approaching this question of all these defaulted loans or the ones that are about to be defaulted, over and above what we have already attempted to do in December, is something that we must address. What is the appropriate action, not to reward those who were gaming the system, but for those who are genuinely hurting because they either did not know or they were deceived into signing a mortgage that lulled them along with cheap interest rates and then all of a sudden has an escalation of that interest rate that they cannot pay. A combination of all these actions is what we ought to think about and come up with a stimulus package very soon in a bipartisan way. Let's in the Senate rise above the petty partisan politics that has so dominated this Chamber now for the last several years. Let's rise and come together and help our people with a quick passage of a stimulus package that will get America back on the economic track. Florida Primary I end by saying a word or two about a completely different subject. It has been painful for this Senator to see the Democratic candidates for President stay out of my State of Florida because they had to sign a pledge that was insisted upon by the four first privileged States-- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina--even though it was a Republican State legislature, signed into law by a Republican Governor of Florida, moving the primary 1 week before super Tuesday, February 5, to the Florida primary date of January 29, those four privileged States insisted that the candidates sign a pledge or else suffer the consequences in those early four States. The pledge was that they would not campaign in Florida, they would not hire staff in Florida, they would not open an office, they would not make telephone calls, they would not make advertisements, they would not, can you believe, have press conferences. This Senator thinks that the first amendment protections have been shredded. Nevertheless, that is what the Democratic candidates did, and they have stayed out of Florida. The Republican National Committee, not taking away all the delegates as the Democratic National Committee did from Florida, took away half the Republican delegates from Florida but did not extract such a pledge. Thus, since the South Carolina primary was already held for the Republicans, and it is still to be held this Saturday for the Democrats, we see the Republicans en masse in Florida campaigning, much to the chagrin of Florida Democrats who do not see their candidates. What is going to happen is that next Tuesday, Florida is going to vote; Florida, 18 million people, the first big State to vote, the first State that is representative of the country as a whole in almost any demographic that we line up with the country, it is going to vote, and it is going to cast its ballots for President of both parties, and it is going to be reported how Florida votes. It is definitely going to have an effect 7 days going into super Tuesday when 22 States vote. Senator Levin of Michigan and I have filed a bill that will bring some order out of this chaos. There should not be a person in America who thinks this is the way to nominate a President of the United States for their party. If we continue to allow this kind of chaos going on, the States will continue to leapfrog each other, and the first primary will be at Halloween. This is not a good way of selecting nominees. Senator Levin and I have suggested a more orderly system that I will describe in detail at a later time but that would have six primaries: the first in March, two in April, two in May, and the last one in June, through which the States, large and small, geographically distributed, would each, according to the sequence of which they would draw out of a hat one to six, proceed on that order. Four years later, they would rotate. The ones second would go first, and the ones first would go to the last primary in June, 4 years down the road in the next Presidential cycle. We have to bring order out of this chaos. In the meantime, I am here as Florida's senior Senator to say and to let all those Presidential candidates know that Florida takes its vote very seriously. Florida will express herself in both parties. Florida will have the influence of the first big State, and by the time we get to the conventions in August and September, the entire Florida delegation will be seated and voted. So I ask the Presidential candidates to consider the frustration and the consternation on the Democratic side as we approach our Florida Presidential primary on January 29. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Vermont. I will be very brief. I will vote for this bill. There are good things in the bill and there are bad things. One bad thing, as the Senator from Vermont was listing off a number of things that have not been adequately funded, is the fact that the widows and orphans of the people who have served our Nation in uniform are not being compensated a paltry $1,200 a month due to an offset between what they paid--what their spouse paid for in the spouses's benefit, and what, under the dependents indemnity compensation, they are entitled to by law. This bill, to its credit, tries to address that offset but addresses it with a paltry $50 per month for those widows and orphans. It was President Lincoln who said a Nation has an obligation for those who went to war to care for the widows and orphans. Widows and orphans are a cost of war, and we have denied that cost and we still do so again tonight. We have only been working on this for 7 straight years, and at least we got a paltry $50. But there is much more that needs to be done to right this wrong. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I certainly will yield to my friend from Connecticut.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Utah, who has been a member of the Intelligence Committee for years and years, and who brings a lot of good common sense to the committee. I echo his comments about the bipartisan nature of Chairman Rockefeller and Vice Chairman Bond working together. It was something that this member of the Intelligence Committee had seen earlier this year break down, and I must say this member of the Intelligence Committee absolutely reminded everybody on the committee that the committee ought to work of one accord, reaching consensus when we can reach that consensus, and, at the end of the day, that the product not only be a bipartisan product, it ought to be a nonpartisan product.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I certainly do yield to my friend.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would respond to the very distinguished Senator from Connecticut that those kinds of reports have been in the press for some time, and I think generally they are considered to be true. However, a lot of that operated under the old law, which had a 3-day limit, that in the case of a national emergency, the President wouldn't have to first go and get a court order. Instead, he could go on under the emergency conditions and surveil the particular target, if it were an American person but, under the old law, would have to go back to the court within 3 days to get that order or else cease their surveillance. In the new law that was passed on a temporary basis for 6 months, that we passed last August, that 3 days has been extended to 7 days to give more leeway. Certainly, if someone in the Government feels that a person--an American person--should be surveilled in their communications but it was an emergency basis, that they don't have time to go to the court, the law as it stands now and under the new FISA bill we are considering on this floor would say that within 7 days, the executive branch would have to go and get that court order called a warrant or else cease the surveillance. Now, that is very reasonable, and it is a lot of that kind of stuff that is in this bill that is so necessary to have this etched into a permanent law, not a law that is going to sunset in 6 months--next February. That is part of the gravity of the legislation before us. Now we have to get to this very sensitive issue of immunity and how to handle it. Although I have stated I am certainly sympathetic; indeed, the Senator's amendment he is going to offer is the one I offered and that was defeated. It only got three affirmative votes in the committee. So my amendment in the committee did not prevail. Nevertheless, there are other amendments coming after the Senator's amendment, if his is not--if the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut is not adopted--that do take a very practical approach. The Feinstein amendment which I have cosponsored is one where the issue of immunity would be determined in the FISA Court itself that is set up in order to handle these national security matters. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Indeed, Mr. President, it would be. And we have to pass a FISA bill. For many of the reasons you have heard--the changing technology--we have to give the legal authorization to the U.S. Government. That is another reason for having a clear delineation in law of what the Government can do and what it cannot do. Because, unfortunately, what we have seen over the last several years is the intrusion into this murky area without the necessary legal binding, that it was clearly legal as to what was being done. That is what is so necessary about passing a piece of legislation such as we have before us in the form of which we are just on the motion to proceed. Now, I voted for closing off debate on the motion to proceed because it is clearly important that we get a law and pass this legislation. It improves on the legislation we passed last August, where it is going to provide protections for Americans both in the United States and abroad. But naturally in something as complicated as this, I am not satisfied completely with what is in the bill. That is why we ought to get to the bill, so we can start amending or considering amendments. For example, the Senator from Connecticut--when we ever get to the bill--is going to offer the amendment that I offered in the Intelligence Committee, which was the amendment to take away immunity from the telephone companies. It was specifically targeted to strip the provisions of the bill that provided immunity to the telecommunications companies for assistance provided to the administration for warrantless surveillance in a defined period of time--from September 11, 2001, until January 17, 2007. The reason I offered that in the committee was, I felt it was hugely premature for our committee to grant that retroactive immunity to those telecommunications carriers when, in fact, the White House had only come forth with the documents that we could inspect only 48 hours prior to when we were going to vote on it. I am still troubled by the idea of a blanket retroactive immunity. Whether they deserve a break for their cooperation with the Government's warrantless program in the aftermath of September 11, that is one thing. But this went on for 6 years. I can certainly understand, in the aftermath of the horror of what we saw on September 11, 2001, that a President would need, for the protection of the country--and using his article II powers of the Constitution as Commander in Chief to protect the country--that he could say to telecommunications companies: We need this information. There is a law over here called the FISA law that says if you want to snoop on any American person, you have to do it by getting a court order by a special Federal court that is organized under law to handle these secret national security matters in secret. I can see telecommunications companies going along, that in the urgency of the aftermath of September 11--we do not know when the next strike is coming; it may be the next day, it may be the next week--that the telecommunications companies cooperated when the President said and the communications come to them saying: This is under the legal authority of the President. I can understand that. But after a year? After 2 years? After 3 years? How about 4 years? How about 5 years, when clearly there is a law on the books that if it is going to touch Americans, you have to go to the special Federal court impaneled by Federal judges who are cleared for top-secret information? Now, that is what bothers me. There is another part that bothers me, which is that in the separation of powers envisioned in our Constitution, the first article of the Constitution is setting up the legislative branch of Government. The second article sets up the executive branch of Government--the President. The Constitution envisioned that there is a check and a balance of each of those on the other. For example, something doesn't become law that the legislative branch--the Congress--passes. It can't become law without the signature of the President. But if Congress disagrees with the President, they can override the President's Veto with a two-thirds vote. So there is this tension built into the system of one branch overseeing the other. It is appropriate that the legislative branch oversees the activities of the executive branch. But that is not what was going on with this matter of surveillance because the legislative branch was left in the dark. The President ignored the Congress. The President ignored the courts when he authorized the warrantless surveillance program and Congress's attempts to conduct the oversight of the program. All those attempts were constantly thwarted. So, therefore, I also have a problem with retroactive immunity--that it would make a mockery of our separation of powers. Now, having said all that, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, I have still a check in my gut as to whether there would be some lack of cooperation among telecommunications companies with the executive branch of government on a going-forward basis if there is not some form of immunity that is given to these telecommunications companies. I know that on a going-forward basis there cannot be any question that we have the cooperation of those companies with the Government in order to protect this country and to provide for the national security. So I am looking forward to the debate continuing as we flesh out all these ideas. I am particularly intrigued with an amendment that is going to be offered by Senator Feinstein, of which I am a cosponsor, which would provide a forum handling classified material in the FISA court itself in order to consider the question of immunity and that there would be a determination in this special Federal court as to whether the immunity ought to be given. I think that is something we ought to debate. We ought to get it clear when we get to the bill. But in the meantime, I share with the Senate my reservations about this part of the bill and about the immunity. Let me say at the end of the day--whether we have immunity in the bill or whether it is not in the bill or whether there is some hybrid version such as the Feinstein amendment, at the end of the day, we are going to need to make this FISA law permanent because it is going to run out in February. We have to clearly have this etched into law so on a going-forward basis we can provide for the security of this country.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Reserving the right to object----

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, when the Senator from the Dakotas was telling us about the little red wagon, the American Flyer from Chicago, of course what immediately hit my mind was that little Red Flyer produced there today may well be painted with lead paint. As the Senator from Illinois, who is presiding, and I and the Senator from North Dakota have gotten into this issue of the tainted toys, here we are, approaching the holiday season and people are out buying these Christmas presents; they want to make their children happy, but they are, indeed, now having to go an extra measure to beware of all the toys because of what we have seen, that the Chinese industry simply will not police itself. The Chinese Government will not insist on the industry policing itself. If we are going to protect the American consumer, we ought to be able to rely on our Consumer Product Safety Commission when, in fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is nonfunctional. It has a workbench about the size of two of these desks with all of the products stacked on it, and that is their research facility to determine if those products, in fact, are lethal to the children of this country. The acting chairman of that commission will come in front of the Senate and say she does not want any more money for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to hire additional staff to change what is a discombobulated card table, with all the products on top of it, into an efficient laboratory that can actually check as to whether these products are safe. The Senator from North Dakota has made a lot of points with regard to automobiles. He has made a lot points with regard to products and how America, in these trade negotiations, gets fleeced, taken advantage of. This Senator does not believe that is the case with this particular agreement that we are going to vote on tomorrow. That is so for this reason: The United States has already opened its markets to most imports from Peru through trade preference legislation, meaning that 98 percent of all the imports from Peru already enter our country duty free. But do the flip side of this. What Senator Dorgan was talking about is equal trade, but the fact is now, without this agreement, U.S. exporters do not have the same access to Peruvian markets that the Peruvian exporters have to the U.S. markets market. U.S. products entering Peru face tariffs that average 10 percent. In order for there to be free trade, it has to be a two-way street. We both have to benefit from a duty-free environment. In fact, after the implementation of this agreement, most of the tariffs on U.S. exports to Peru will be eliminated. That is my bottom line. That is why I am going to support this trade agreement. That is my American hat. Let me put on my Florida hat. This is certainly going to be of benefit to Florida. We have already seen the benefits of free trade-- for example, in a trade agreement that we have with Chile. Florida's exports after the trade agreement, exports to Chile, have grown by 70 percent. Take, for example, Jordan. After we enacted the Jordan Free Trade Agreement--that was about 5 or 6 years ago--Florida's exports to Jordan have increased 1,100 percent. Like those, I believe this Peru trade agreement will open new markets for Florida businesses. It is going to lead to increased exports to Peru from Florida through Florida's ports. Let me give some examples. Florida's exports of transportation and manufacturing equipment will benefit from this trade agreement. In 2006, Florida companies exported $42 million in transportation equipment and $180 million in machinery manufacturers to Peru. The elimination in this agreement of those Peruvian tariffs on those kind of high-value pieces of equipment is going to provide a competitive boost to Florida exporters who will no longer be facing tariffs that are as high as 12 percent. With the passage of this agreement, Florida companies will have a chance to take full advantage of Peru's growing demand for their equipment. Support for free trade doesn't mean we need to go out and compromise on other things, some of which the Senator from North Dakota has mentioned, or that we would compromise on our support for human rights or the environment. That is why this particular Peruvian agreement includes numerous environmental and labor protections. For these reasons, I am going to support this free trade agreement. Mr. President, while I am here, I wish to say a couple other things about a couple other matters that have to do with Latin America. There was a very significant vote in Venezuela yesterday. Basically, President Hugo Chavez wanted to amend their country's Constitution to allow him to become President for life. In a very narrow vote, the people rose up and they said no. He is in office until 2012, under the current Constitution, so Hugo Chavez will continue his brand of leadership. There are people in this Chamber who have reached out to President Chavez to take a more moderate, conciliatory roll, a roll where the two countries, the United States and Venezuela, could work together. In almost all cases, he has rejected those overtures. This Senator is one of those who has reached out to him. He has charted his course and he wanted to be President for life and the Venezuelan people, albeit by a very narrow margin, said no. If that is a signal to the President of Venezuela that there ought to be a different way that he ought to approach other countries, particularly the United States, then hopefully that is a message President Chavez might consider. I want to say another thing about Latin America. Last Friday we saw the first evidence in 4 years that three American hostages held by the FARC in Colombia are alive. These images give us hope. They also remind us that securing their safe release and the return to their families must be a top priority. And it is. Without making speeches, this Senator from Florida is constantly speaking in private conversations to the Government of the United States, and to Latin American leaders, about helping in securing the release of these Americans and of a French citizen, a former Senator in the Colombian Government. There are other hostages as well. It is my understanding they are Colombian. But, of course, our responsibility is to our own Americans. So there is hope. Because this was the first time, to the outside world, that we have seen the visual images that they are alive. Let us have that as a constant reminder to keep pressing the FARC that it is in their interest and in humanity's interest to release these Americans. I will conclude on a completely different topic. I must say with absolute frankness that I was saddened when I heard that the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Lott, was going to resign. I think he is one of the most delightful of all the Members of this body, in a legislative body of some exceptionally talented and engaging people. We have seen Senator Lot use his legislative prowess, often in a bipartisan way, to bring about the consensus in order to get things done and to move the legislative process along, which is so necessary and, as the good book says: For us to come and reason together. He has been a legislative master who got along so well as the majority leader with Senator Daschle, the minority leader, and then, because of the turn of events in 2001, for Senator Lott, the minority leader, to get along with Senator Daschle, the majority leader, so they could move the business of the Senate along. He is a personal friend. I have had the privilege of going to the University of Mississippi to speak on a forum at the Trent Lott Institute at that great university. And for this Senator, he will be very much missed in the Senate. We wish him and Tricia and all his family God speed. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing. The hearing will address issues related to the retirement of the Space Shuttle, its remaining missions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's, NASA, plans to compensate should they not fulfill all mission requirements on schedule, and other issues facing NASA when the Space Shuttle is retired.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia and the Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Not a Matter `If,' But of `When': The Status of U.S. Response Following an RDD Attack.''

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Restoring Congressional Intent and Protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act'' November 15, 2007, at 2 p.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in order to conduct a business meeting.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 15, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in open session, to receive testimony on the state of the United States Army.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in order to conduct a hearing on the anti-drug foreign assistance package for Mexico and Central America.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2007, off the Senate Floor in the Reception Room, immediately after the first rollcall vote occurring after 10 a.m. to consider the nomination of Michael W. Hager to be an Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Human Resources and Management.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct an executive business meeting on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 10 a.m. in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Agenda: I. Bills S. 2248, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2007; S. 352, Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of 2007, (Grassley, Schumer, Leahy, Specter, Graham, Feingold, Cornyn, Durbin); S. 344, A bill to permit the televising of Supreme Court proceedings, (Specter, Grassley, Durbin, Schumer, Feingold, Cornyn); S. 1638, Federal Judicial Salary Restoration Act of 2007, (Leahy, Hatch, Feinstein, Graham, Kennedy). II. Resolutions S. Res. 366, designating November 2007 as ``National Methamphetamine Awareness Month,'' to increase awareness of methamphetamine abuse, (Baucus, Grassley, Biden, Graham, Schumer); S. Res. 367, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the mass movement for Soviet Jewish freedom and the 20th anniversary of the Freedom Sunday rally for Soviet Jewry on the National Mall, (Lieberman, Specter, Biden, Brownback, Cardin, Feinstein) III. Nominations Joseph N. Laplante to be United States District Judge for the District of New Hampshire; Reed Charles O'Connor to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division; Thomas D. Schroeder to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina; Amul R. Thapar to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room SD 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on S. 2203, a bill to reauthorize the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund, and for other purposes.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Legislative Hearing on America's Climate Security Act of 2007, S. 2191.''

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. And me.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to say to my colleague from North Dakota what an absolute delight he is to speak with such passion, as he does, about things he knows so much about and how he can explain it in understandable terms. Farm bills are one of the most complicated things in the world because of the balancing of all the different interests, with these elaborate farm support programs, that you have to have a Ph.D. in mathematics, sometimes, to understand. Senator Conrad is someone who speaks so eloquently and yet so simply in explaining it. He comes from the land, and he represents a lot of those who earn their living from the land, as does this Senator from Florida. Most people think of Florida as Disney World and high tech and the space center and so forth. People would be amazed that Florida agriculture is--next to the service industry, which is tourism--just about equal to any other industry as the second largest economic impact interest on our State. Our beef cattle industry is huge. Our citrus industry is huge. So it is with a great deal of passion, like Senator Conrad, that I take the floor to try to articulate the importance of a farm bill to the people in our State as well as has been articulated by the Senator from North Dakota. Now, I wish to talk not just about the farm bill. I want to talk about a major amendment that is pending, and that is the Lugar- Lautenberg amendment in taking a completely fresh look at how we protect the Nation's agriculture. I am very happy to be an original cosponsor of this amendment. No doubt, farmers are facing difficulties. We rely on them for our food. Senator Conrad said it best: In this time of thanksgiving, as we sit around a table of bounty, we should be grateful we live in a land where our basic food and nutrition is met for most Americans. And I say ``most Americans'' because some do not. Because we have an effective farming industry, it demands we continue to be good stewards of the land and the water. We rely on those farmers to persevere during times of natural disaster and uncertainty, where major natural disasters, such as hurricanes, can completely eliminate the citrus crop in Florida, which threatens their very solvency. Then, at the same time, we are asking them not to give in to the pressures, the financial pressures to sell their land for development. This is particularly acute in a State such as Florida where the land value has risen so much that it almost does not make economic sense for the farmers to continue to farm their land. These farmers are providing our food to our citizens--and not only to America but to the world. We must provide farmers a safety net in the many programs we do here in the farm bill, in other natural disaster bills--a safety net for their times of uncertainty. We have a system that works for many, but this system in a State such as Florida doesn't work for all. In fact, a majority of our Florida farmers are not eligible to participate in a lot of these farm programs that receive the lion's share of the payments in the bill we are going to vote on. This system, as I said, is so complicated it is nuanced. Many of the programs in the farm bill were started as a temporary fix of the immediate problem that the country was facing at the time, but then they get extended time and time again. Then, contrary to their original intent, they become permanent, and some of them have become corrupted-- some of those programs--by people who exploit them. OK. It is time for us to step back and take a fresh look at this and determine how we can best support our farmers. I believe the Lugar- Lautenberg approach I have joined is an amendment that does that. The amendment is going to flow out of the normal farm program and it would provide every farmer in this country who chooses to participate with farm insurance, which would be provided at no cost. Farmers then would have a guarantee that their revenue would reach a certain threshold based on local conditions instead of national standards. This is a remarkable shift from the way we do business now. But it means we eliminate the direct payments to farmers whose land hasn't been farmed in years or who are selling their crops at record high prices. Instead, under this amendment, we are going to provide them with a safety net to fall back on if their farm revenues suddenly drop or if a bad year hits. Guess how much money it is going to save. Upwards of $4 billion. Even by giving the farm insurance at no cost to the farmer, it is going to save billions of dollars. The Senate bill we now have on the floor has parts of it that are very good. It increases money for nutrition programs which are going to make a tangible difference in the lives of those on food stamps. It has a tangible increase for the conservation programs which will make significant strides in protecting our lands and watersheds. But this amendment I am talking about, the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment, goes even further. It fully funds the nutrition programs across 10 years--not just 5 as in the committee bill--and it expands programs such as the simplified summer food program. It accounts for an additional $150 million each year to provide for school lunches, and some of those school lunches are going to children--hungry children--in the developing world. It increases the conservation spending by $1 billion. At the end of the day, the amendment saves billions of dollars by taking out the antiquated direct payments program. My State of Florida has more acres of orange and grapefruit groves than any other State and it ranks among the top five when it comes to growing vegetables, not even speaking about what I already told my colleagues; you would be surprised among the beef cattle industry how big we are. Until this year, the needs of specialty crops such as citrus and vegetables were barely mentioned in farm legislation. The committee bill we are now debating finally addresses this part of agriculture that is so near and dear to our hearts, and so much of a staple for us in Florida, by making tremendous advances in research, pest and disease mitigation, technical assistance, and block grants. I give sincere thanks to Chairman Harkin and his committee for what they have done, but guess what. The Lugar-Lautenberg amendment goes even further. It provides over $750 million more to specialty crops and still manages to save $20 billion. I said $4 billion earlier. I said billions. That is true. We are talking about $20 billion of savings in overall support for agriculture by taking this farmers' insurance program at no cost to the farmers. Specialty crops certainly aren't just important to Florida. Fruits and vegetables are an absolute necessity of healthy eating everywhere, and this Lugar-Lautenberg amendment gives an additional $200 million to the Women, Infants and Children Farmers Market Nutrition Program which makes fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables a part of their daily diets--daily diets of women and young children who can't afford them. Not only is it going to make our children grow up strong and healthy, but it also supports the local farmers. There is also an extra $250 million in this amendment for a similar program that serves low-income senior citizens. I have been on this Senate floor time and time again to call attention to the plight of one of our great national, international, and natural treasures: the Florida Everglades. I am happy to tell my colleagues there is an important step in this Lugar-Lautenberg amendment in conserving the endangered Everglades, as it includes $35 million that can be used to complement efforts undertaken by the State of Florida to restore the northern part of the Everglades system, which is the area that is so located that pollutes so much of the rest of the Everglades as the water flows south, because it is the area north of Lake Okeechobee that is critical to the larger ecosystem further to the south. While this is a small part of what is needed to preserve the overall Everglades and to restore the Everglades, it is another opportunity we can do something about, in helping clean up that water that is flowing into Lake Okeechobee that ultimately flows south into the Florida Everglades. This amendment is a fresh, effective way of how we can do business in agriculture, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, he was talking about all of us in lifting the burdens and the burdens we gladly bear. The pastor's prayer reminded us of our need to have a servant heart, to serve the Nation. Dr. Swanson is very much a part of our Orlando community. He is my personal pastor, as Grace and I are members of the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. He is illustrative of the great pastoral leadership we have had in Orlando. A few weeks ago, we had my 30-year friend, the just-retired pastor of the First Baptist Church of Orlando, Jim Henry, here. He is one of the great leaders of the faith. We have had in this Chamber Rev. Sam Green of St. Mark A.M.E. Church, now Bishop Sam Green in a district in South Africa, another one of the great pastors of our region in central Florida. We will be having another one of the great pastors, Rev. Willie Barnes of the Baptist Church in Eatonville, FL, another one of my personal friends and one of the great pastors we have been blessed to have in our region. What they talk about, as Dr. Swanson said so eloquently in his prayer, is the unity of what was taught in the ancient Scriptures and the New Testament; that is, servant leadership. That was so well expressed in the life of Jesus, who was a role model as a leader but as a servant leader. We welcome these pastors, and particularly we welcome Dr. Swanson today to the Senate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, as the Senator from California has been describing her experience, I have been enjoying enormously not only her reflection of that experience but remembering seeing the faces of Senator Boxer and her husband as they saw these new experiences of gliding in an airboat over a sea of grass that Marjory Douglas called river of grass. As we came to the edge and went into the big cypress preserve where cypress stands, clumps of large cypress trees dotted the landscape, as the Senator explained, it was getting close to sundown. As the light lowered, as you were gliding over this meadow of grass, it looked exactly like that until suddenly you were shocked into the reality that there was a doe and her fawn as they were bounding, not over the meadow but sloshing through the water as they headed toward the clump of cypress trees. It is now our responsibility to protect and preserve this national treasure--indeed, an international treasure--for the generations to come. It was 60 years ago that the Everglades National Park was created by an act of Congress and President Harry Truman signed the bill into law. The Senator at whose desk I now reside was then a young Member of Congress, Senator George Smathers, who helped bring that Everglades National Park 60 years ago, in December of 1947, into fruition. Now we sit here on a momentous occasion. In order for us to continue to try to protect this national and natural treasure, we have to overcome a Presidental veto. It is important not just to our State but so many States because of these water projects, because the last time we had such a law that authorized these water projects was back in 2000. What that plan did in 2000 in an Everglades restoration plan, created after years of study and analysis, was to try to restore the Everglades to something of what nature intended. But we couldn't do it like nature had it because a huge portion of the south part of the peninsula of Florida was the Everglades. Decades later, it is so different because there are 6 million people living in South Florida, there is a major agricultural industry, and in the intervening half century, mankind has come in and diked and drained the natural flow of the water in a way Mother Nature never intended. So what was passed--the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000--was intended, given the changes in the population, the agriculture, and the existing diking and draining, to restore as much of that to the natural function that Mother Nature intended so we could preserve the Everglades. The bill we have in front of us contains two restoration projects that have undergone painstaking planning, design, and development, and they are ready for construction. But we can't get them constructed until we can get them authorized. The Indian River Lagoon and the Picayune Strand are vital projects--together worth $2 billion--in increasing the water quality and maintaining and preserving the natural areas to reverse the decades of damage and neglect. So 7 years after the creation of this plan, a plan that has been on hold because the Federal Government has faltered in its commitment to restoration of this national and natural treasure, it is time for us to get on and approve this bill, unfortunately, by overturning the President's veto. The biggest threat now to the restoration of the Everglades--thanks to folks such as Senator Boxer and those beyond the boundaries of Florida who are finally understanding how important it is--is the delay. We made a promise 7 years ago, and we are going to finally fulfill that promise. It is a partnership between the State of Florida and the Federal Government. We committed ourselves then to the largest restoration project in the world, and when we pass this legislation, despite those who have tried to detour it, the Federal Government will have made a significant step in living up to its commitment. So with this victory close at hand, let me remind my colleagues there are many more battles we are going to have to fight in the future to save the Everglades. But, Madam President, it is my pleasure to stand here to support Senator Boxer in this vote to override the President's veto.